Fairy Tale

Chapter One: The Goddam Bridge. The Miracle. The Howling. CHAPTER ONE The Goddam Bridge. The Miracle. The Howling.

1
I'm sure I can tell this story. I'm also sure no one will believe it. That's fine with me. Telling it will be enough. My problem-and I'm sure many writers have it, not just newbies like me-is deciding where to start.

My first thought was with the shed, because that's where my adventures really began, but then I realized I would have to tell about Mr. Bowditch first, and how we became close. Only that never would have happened except for the miracle that happened to my father. A very ordinary miracle you could say, one that's happened to many thousands of men and women since 1935, but it seemed like a miracle to a kid.

Only that isn't the right place, either, because I don't think my father would have needed a miracle if it hadn't been for that goddamned bridge. So that's where I need to start, with the goddamned Sycamore Street Bridge. And now, thinking of those things, I see a clear thread leading up through the years to Mr. Bowditch and the padlocked shed behind his ramshackle old Victorian.

But a thread is easy to break. So not a thread but a chain. A strong one. And I was the kid with the shackle clamped around his wrist.
2
The Little Rumple River runs through the north end of Sentry's Rest (known to the locals as Sentry), and until the year 1996, the year I was born, it was spanned by a wooden bridge. That was the year the state inspectors from the Department of Highway Transportation looked it over and deemed it unsafe. People in our part of Sentry had known that since '82, my father said. The bridge was posted for ten thousand pounds, but townies with a fully loaded pickup truck mostly steered clear of it, opting for the turnpike extension, which was an annoying and time-consuming detour. My dad said you could feel the planks shiver and shake and rumble under you even in a car. It was dangerous, the state inspectors were

Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes the short story collection You Like It Darker, Holly, Fairy Tale, Billy Summers, If It Bleeds, The Institute, Elevation, The Outsider, Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of Watch, Finders Keepers, and Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and a television series streaming on Peacock). His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works The Dark Tower, It, Pet Sematary, Doctor Sleep, and Firestarter are the basis for major motion pictures, with It now the highest-grossing horror film of all time. He is the recipient of the 2020 Audio Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King. 

Praise for Fairy Tale

"I read (in one long, long sitting) Stephen King's fabulous Fairy Tale and it was just such a trip! A trip to a magical, terrifying land where wonders and horrors are one. But also a trip back home- to that prose that lulled me into nightmares in my teens. The voice of the King." -Guillermo del Toro

"Stephen King has all the daring, enchantment and even romance of a classic bedtime story, but King's signature unsettling style will keep you sitting up straight and wide-eyed rather than drifting off to dreamland." -Vanity Fair

"You'll be grateful that there are 600-plus pages of it to remind you several times over how much fun that kind of reading experience is... Good, evil, a kingdom to save, monsters to slay-these are the stuff that page-turners are made from." -Laura Miller, Slate

"A page-turner driven by memorably strange encounters and well-rendered, often thrilling action." -The New York Times Book Review

"An enthralling, adventurous read that will, like any genuine fairy tale, scare you half to death and lift up your heart... A splendid work of world-building." -Colette Bancroft, The Tampa Bay Tribune

"Once upon a time, Stephen King dared to write a novel called 'Fairy Tale' and totally lived up to that simple but lofty title... The book bursts with creativity... A profound story of good vs. evil that's timeless and timely... life-affirming... After turning that last page, you'll feel a little stronger in spirit, yearn for another story and, dare we say, maybe even live happily ever after." -Brian Truitt, USA Today

"Lovely... captures the creeping suspense of childhood classics." - The Chicago Tribune

"If writing this beautiful, exciting, touching fairy tale did the trick for him, then imagine what it will do for you as a reader."